Deutsche Post reports strong results, to pay staff bonus

BERLIN (Reuters) - German logistics group Deutsche Post AG reported a 16% rise in second-quarter operating profit on Tuesday and said it would pay its 500,000 employees a 300 euro ($339) bonus each as a reward for their efforts during the coronavirus crisis.

Deutsche Post DHL, one of the world's biggest post andfreight companies, has been handling a big increase in parcel shipments during the pandemic, although its global freight business has been hit by the slowdown in the global economy.

In an unscheduled release, Deutsche Post said preliminary figures showed that its quarterly operating profit came in around 890 million euros, well above average analyst forecasts for 811 million, according to Refinitiv data.

It said volumes started to recover in the second quarter and had seen a rise in shipments driven by e-commerce, both internationally and in the German parcel business.

It now expects full-year operating profit to come in at between 3.5 billion and 3.8 billion euros, including the payment of a one-time bonus to staff totaling around 200 million, to be accounted for in the third quarter.

Deutsche Post tweaked its medium-term guidance to say it now only expects to reach its target for operating profit of 5.3 billion euros by 2022 if the global economy rebounds quickly. If there is no broad-based recovery, it only expects 4.7 billion.

It also proposed to pay a dividend of 1.15 euros per share, the same as last year. It releases full results on Aug. 5.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Edmund Blair and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)